Urbanears are one of the most compelling audio brands to appear in the Scandinavian landscape lately. These stylish and modern audio innovators have plenty to offer the music lovers of today.
Whether you’re searching for cozy over-ear headphones or a compelling portable speaker, Urbanears has you covered. Plus, you don’t have to pay the prices of more established brands like B&O.
The Swedish company does Scandinavian minimalism very well, providing products that look great, without all the unnecessary bells and whistles.
Today, we’re going to be looking at one of the most compelling Urbanears Speaker options — the Ralis.
The Urbanears Ralis has a compelling box-style design and a large speaker that’s enough to fill a room with sound or keep you entertained outdoors.
Let’s take a closer look.
Urbanears Ralis review: Tech specs
The Ralis speaker is one of the more popular portable speaker choices from Urbanears, offering a handy combination of features, like a 20 hour battery and compelling Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity.
For an affordable price, you get one heck of a speaker.
Technical specifications:
- Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity
- 100-240 volt input
- Mains frequency 50-60Hz
- 2 hours of charging time
- 20 hours of battery life
- 5-watt tweeters x 2
- 10 watt woofer
- Dimensions: 195mm x 138 mm x 184 mm
- Weight: 2800 grams
Urbanears Ralis review: Design
Compared to some of the other portable speakers available today, the Urbanears Ralis is a little chunky — but it’s still wonderfully easy to carry. The in-built handle means you can pull your speaker around with you like a handbag.
Plus, there are various colors to choose from, too, each with their own Scandi appeal, like blue, red, and grey.
The Urbanears Ralis is a good-looking device with a powerful grill on the front, where the majority of the sound comes from.
There are tweeters on the front and back to give more depth to the music, and the back of the speaker also has an array of ports for connectivity.
You can link your smartphone with a 3.5mm jack and charge your smartphone from the speaker too.
On the side of the Ralis, you’ll find the Bluetooth pairing button and the power button. On top, there’s the controls for the volume, playback, and skipping between tracks.
The buttons don’t do much, so there’s not a huge tactile response here, but they work well enough for the speaker to be intuitive.
In terms of safety when you’re out and about, the Ralis also comes with a handy IPX2 rating. This means that you get some coverage from moisture and dust, but we wouldn’t recommended taking your Urbanears speaker to the beach or pool.
Urbanears Ralis review: Features
From a feature perspective, the Urbanears Ralis is surprisingly robust, offering an excellent combination of high-performance audio and strong connectivity for a low price tag.
The largest portion of the Ralis is probably for the battery, which can last up to 20 hours without charging. There’s no power status light to help you keep track, unfortunately.
Urbanears have also added a USB port to the back of the speaker which acts as a handy charging port if you need to juice up your smartphone on the move.
We found this to be a particularly useful function when you’re taking your speaker with you on a road or camping trip.
Although there’s no smart speaker assistance that we can see, you can connect and listen to music with no problem thanks to the robust Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity.
Features include:
- Water resistant design: IPX2
- Convenient carry handy
- Single charge gives 20 hours of battery
- 2 hour charging time
- Connect with Bluetooth 5.0
- 30 feet of connectivity range
- Charging port (USB) on the back
- 3.5mm aux-in input
- Connect up to 2 devices simultaneously
Urbanears Ralis review: Performance
At first glance, the Urbanears Ralis definitely isn’t the most advanced Bluetooth speaker on the market.
There’s no obvious smart assistant access, and it’s missing handy features like the option to adjust your EQ from an app on your phone.
However, you do get an incredibly reliable connection from the Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity.
Another bonus of the Urbanears Ralis is that you can pair up to three devices to the speaker at once, so you don’t have to pass a phone around your pals if you want to take turns being the DJ.
Be warned though, the playback will stop and judder if you’re all trying to take control at the same time.
When it comes to sound quality, the Urbanears speaker team have done an more than decent job again here. There are two five watt tweeters on either side of the speaker, and a 10 watt woofer on the back of the device.
This is some great tech for the price you’re paying, and the quality of the components make a real impact.
If you like speakers that are heavy on bass and great at kicking out punchy low frequencies, then the Ralis definitely has you covered in that regard.
The good news is that the bass isn’t so overwhelming that it drowns out other sounds too. There’s still plenty of crispness in the higher and mid-level notes, so you can pick out the details for different kinds of song.
On top of all that, the volume for the Urbanears speaker is fantastic too. You don’t have to worry about your music being drowned out by rain and wind if you’re outside, because the Ralis can fight back with its own significant power.
If you’re looking for a bass heavy speaker that delivers sensational connectivity and massive volume, then this is the portable product for you.
The speaker design is a little chunky compared to some of the more portable options on the market- but it still looks and feels good wherever you take it.
Additionally, although you don’t have smart assistant access and EQ control, you do benefit from excellent sound quality and a strong Bluetooth 5.0 connection.
It’ll be hard to find a Scandi-chic speaker like this for a similar price-tag from any other brand.
